


A Nose for Newsboys

by S_L_Martin



Category: The Beatles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-21 00:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13729179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_L_Martin/pseuds/S_L_Martin
Summary: Late summer, 1969.  Paul can’t understand how they got from there to here.





	A Nose for Newsboys

Late summer, 1969. Paul has returned from a visit to John and Yoko in their new set-up at Tittenhurst Park. The place had given Paul the sensation that John had gutted the entire mansion, then dug his own man-made lake, just to make space to contain the breadth of his own uncertainty.

Paul comes home to find a ladder propped against his garden window and some of his clothing and photographs gone. Despite the intrusion, the first thing that comes to his mind is Forthlin Road: John climbing the garden drainpipe at night, Paul opening the bathroom window to let him in. John got away with so much in those days. Everyone in Paul’s life was a bit intimidated by John’s middle-class airs. He was a stranger from another world.

The two images of John: at Tittenhurst Park, confused, surrounded by vast spaces of his own making; and at Forthlin Road, young and brash, impulsively confident; create an odd mood in Paul’s mindspace.

He sits down to try to write it out:

 _She came in through the bathroom window:_  
Protected by a silver spoon.  
But now she sucks her thumb and wonders  
By the banks of her own lagoon.

And yet, in the midst of all of John’s inner conflict, Yoko had seemed to know nothing about John and Paul’s history together. Worse than that, she seemed to be under the impression that John’s current misery was because Paul had let him down as a friend! John’s little code words for them: the sun and the moon, Sunday and Monday, Paul’s “Tuesday” nickname for John; Yoko seemed to believe these were surrealist nonsense, having no idea of any of their actual meanings. Paul had told Linda everything about him and John, all about their decade-long love affair. John seemed to have done nothing of the kind with Yoko, other than to apparently slag Paul off.

_Didn't anybody tell her?_  
Didn't anybody see?  
Sunday's on the phone to Monday.  
Tuesday's on the phone to me. 

 

When he’d “met” John at St. Peter’s, when John had, without hesitation, invited him to a “dancing party” with the other boys, which was apparently John’s special code for a group wank, he’d been almost completely fearless. Afterward, Paul had asked him how this all got started. John had eyed him defiantly while lightly explaining that he’d started it. He’d been doing this with his friends for years - some days fifteen of them would be there at a time, working at each other. His gaze seemed to dare Paul to defy his casual tone or suggest the reason why. Paul could think of another interpretation, certainly, but he didn’t dare to say it then.

_She said she'd always been a dancer_  
She worked at fifteen clubs a day  
And though she thought I knew the answer  
Well, I knew what I could not say. 

The reason he knew, the reason John knew he knew, was because they hadn’t really “met” at St. Peter’s. They’d met at the Cast Iron Shore the summer before. They’d been among those who’d strolled that area in the evenings, looking for a bit of contact with a like-minded fellow, someone who wouldn’t mind working at your club, or letting you work at his. Paul had been young, happening to find the place for the first time as he returned from his work as a newsboy nearby. But most of those strolling were not young, and you could hold no illusions that they were simply engaged in youthful experimentation. No, if you go to meet someone at the Cast Iron Shore, you know what they are, and you know what you are.

Being young there meant only one thing: in addition to a good time, you might also be rewarded with a couple of quid for your open-mindedness and discretion. After he’d “met” John for the second time, once they’d become a steady thing, John couldn’t bear the thought of Paul going back there, sitting pretty in a row with the others on offer. Still in serious need of pocket change, Paul convinced John to come with him, to lure the seriously drunk off into the dark to relieve them of their currency in a different way. John tried, but he was naturally more the sneak-thief type: face-to-face robbery proved to be too much for him.

_And so I quit the police department_  
And got myself a steady job  
And though she tried her best to help me  
She could steal but she could not rob 

It was a good thing they had the music to fall back on. They had gone went from two strangers passing in the night, to a pair of ineffective robbers and teenage sweethearts, to a Lennon/McCartney brand and empire. Anyone with eyes who worked closely enough with them had deduced the obvious about the partnership, yet Yoko had not figured it out, and no one had told her. In a little while, John would probably call him, and they’d stay on the phone talking about nothing for half of the night, and Yoko would be left to wonder why John’s obsession with Paul left him in so much pain ...

_Didn't anybody tell her?_  
Didn't anybody see?  
Sunday's on the phone to Monday.  
Tuesday's on the phone to me. 

****

Epilogue

1976, New York, John reminisces about his 1966 liaison with Paul in a Paris hotel room. Introducing his own character, he writes, “He was known for his chins and an unerring nose for newsboys.”


End file.
